Guild Wars 2

I am looking for a basic build for level 10 to get used to the necro, what weapons and to equip first and if possible a rotation.

At that level you can run around with no traits, a pair of speedos and a broken twig as a weapon.

Just pick anything, lol. The easiest weapon when leveling is dagger (learn the speed trait first) and for armor… whatever.

Try them all. See what you like.

Dawdler, I understand that, But i would like a combination that I might use later on to get the rotation down. Like scepter/horn and axe/??? I read that is OK, but i have no idea what the rotation is, that’s my next forum question

I found it best to just play around with all weapons and see which fit my playstyle best at that point.

To be frank though, while leveling I found power builds to generally be much more efficient. For necro I found dagger/warhorn to be very nice whilst leveling. Staff as your secondary weapon is generally a good idea, it gives you utility, some ranged power and a nice burst of aoe chill and weakness (staff #3 into staff #4) for the bigger packs you want to engage.

Alternatively the axe is a decent weapon for leveling, as it has the range. You can often down a mob with the axe before you’d get in range with a dagger. Personally though I preferred the dagger, mostly for the fast LF generation and the 2 target cleave.

As far as utilities go. I started out with death magic and minions on my last necro; they are pretty decent at earlier levels (assuming they actually attack).
But later switched to wells. Once you can get the CDR (Vampiric Rituals) in the blood traitline, they start to shine quite well. Especially Well of Suffering is a beast.

Thank you Nyth, that is very helpful.

Is the necro easy to play in PvP or will i get dropped like a got hit by Rhonda Rousy?

Quin.6105:

Is the necro easy to play in PvP or will i get dropped like a got hit by Rhonda Rousy?

The Necro is quite challenging to play in PvP since we lack active defenses outside of Death Shroud. A good Necro can be an absolute terror, but that requires a lot of experience.

What Blaine Tog said. Tough in PvP unless you know what you are doing.

Been a while since I had a level 10 Necro…in fact, been a while since I had a level 10 anything. Not since the New Player Experience (NPE) and the changes to Trait acquisition some time ago. I remember getting minions early – they helped. But that’s it.

misterman.1530:

I remember getting minions early – they helped. But that’s it.

Yep, this too: minions aren’t really all that great later on since they tend to kitten around and then get vaporized in AoE, but they make leveling up dead easy (pun entirely intended). I wouldn’t recommend traiting for them too much since you’re basically using them as meat shields (when you finally get the Elite skill Summon Flesh Golem, that’s pretty much the only minion skill you’ll need for this), but they are a blessing from Grenth when you need someone else to take the pressure for you from open world mobs.

Personally, I enjoyed the dagger/warhorn + staff, with Death Magic and minions for leveling. The staff has range and AoE, the dagger has dps and a few other useful things, and the warhorn has the interrupt and swiftness/cripple. I tried different weapons, but ended up using staff almost exclusively and just kited everything while my minions did most of the work and took all the aggro for me. Tons of fun running around with my own personal undead army. The great thing about PvE is that it’s not super hard, so you can try out everything to figure out what you like.

As for rotation, that’s the order you use your skills for maximum cool down management and best effect with combo finishers and applying boons or conditions. You shouldn’t have to worry about it too much, other than deciding if you want to fear your enemies away, or try to keep them nearby/trapped in your wells with cripple/etc. Just using the skills and learning what they do should be enough to figure out a rotation of sorts, unless you decided to go for a condition build later. Those are more complicated.

Ok thank you Yubria, The first paragraph is super helpful, the second lost me a little. What exactly are boons and conditions, how do i actually tell if i am in a rotation that will fear or proc from the last cast or action? I am sorry for all the questions, I am just really lost.

I’d say minion build with dagger/warhorn + staff is probably the best for leveling. Don’t be scared of the game. It is not easy one so don’t feel like underachiever. Take your time to learn things, trust me it is normal.

Boons are buffs (probably word you know better if you played other similar games), for example more speed, damage taken reduction, critical chance increase and similar. Conditions are de-buffs: you take more damage from enemies, move slower, your skills recharge slower, you also have damaging conditions which apply damage over time on you as long as you have them…

Quin.6105:

Ok thank you Yubria, The first paragraph is super helpful, the second lost me a little. What exactly are boons and conditions, how do i actually tell if i am in a rotation that will fear or proc from the last cast or action? I am sorry for all the questions, I am just really lost.

Good idea to read up on these :

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupt_Boon

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Reading the tooltips of your skills will tell you what boons/conditions they output and also what combo field or finisher they produce.

Zetsumei.4975:

Quin.6105:

Ok thank you Yubria, The first paragraph is super helpful, the second lost me a little. What exactly are boons and conditions, how do i actually tell if i am in a rotation that will fear or proc from the last cast or action? I am sorry for all the questions, I am just really lost.

Good idea to read up on these :

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupt_Boon

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Reading the tooltips of your skills will tell you what boons/conditions they output and also what combo field or finisher they produce.

Yes, all of this. If it’s still confusing, just focus on using the skills you currently have. Once you get more familiar with them, go back and look into builds/the wiki again, and things will hopefully make more sense. It was all pretty overwhelming for me when I started, and honestly, I still don’t understand conditions/rotations well enough to use my elementalist properly (so I just have fun and burn everything in sight with her, then switch to my necro if I actually need to play well).

Dagger deals the most damage of any necro weapon by far. The offhand weapons are all good, but for open world stuff you should use warhorn because it gives you area damage and swiftness.

As for ranged weapons, staff has the longest range and hits multiple enemies which is very useful. You only need to damage an enemy once to get kill credit for it.

Those are the important details IMO. I suggest you also try out the other necro weapons and just see how they play, but dagger/horn + staff is the way to go for leveling hands down.

Blaine Tog.8304:

misterman.1530:

I remember getting minions early – they helped. But that’s it.

Yep, this too: minions aren’t really all that great later on since they tend to kitten around and then get vaporized in AoE, but they make leveling up dead easy (pun entirely intended). I wouldn’t recommend traiting for them too much since you’re basically using them as meat shields (when you finally get the Elite skill Summon Flesh Golem, that’s pretty much the only minion skill you’ll need for this), but they are a blessing from Grenth when you need someone else to take the pressure for you from open world mobs.

Reaper spec (80) is very promising for MM (minion master).
I don’t remember what level I got “Bob” (shadow fiend), but that one is a nice-ish tank at early levels because he takes orders..at least as far as you target something, tell him to attack, and he does.

If you enjoy playing with the minions, and once you get to the level for the final column of traits, you can trait them for Death Nova. Basically, you just keep them summoned and let them do what they want, and when they die, they explode with an AoE poison cloud. Bone Minions give you 2 for the price of 1, and you can pop them manually. Currently, you can’t really get as many minions together as one might like, in order to create your own Army of Darkness, but once you hit 80, and the new Reaper specialization comes out with the Heart of Thorns expansion, you get a “Shout” (in quotations because it has a cast time, so I refuse to think of it as a real Shout) called “Rise”. That’s an AoE summon up to 5 Jagged Horrors (teeny minions that cause bleeding), based on the number of mobs in range. Add that to a couple of minion utility skill summons, plus traiting for a single jagged horror summon per kill, and if you like, you can add a set of runes to your armor that have a chance to summon another jagged horror when you’re hit. Myself, I prefer the Mad King set, paired with the Flesh Golem (I call him “Fred”), because it will summon a flock of ravens to attack and bleed your target and adjacents (or anything within your radius if you have no target) every time you use an elite skill. Summoning Fred counts as 1 use, and for as long as you can keep him alive, he has a fairly quick CD on his sequential Charge skill (in which he charges at your target and knocks it down (usually), which also counts as an elite skill use. So pretty much every 40 seconds I can summon a flock of ravens, and if he dies, he explodes, so there’s that (and his CD is only 48 seconds, compared to the other Elites 180) Alternatively, you could also use Lich Form, which gives you a ground targeted mark that summons 5 Jagged Horrors when triggered by an enemy (plus all the other. Using this form will destroy any current minions in one shot(with DN, that’s a helluva poison poof if you have a full entourage), and lasts 15 seconds, with 180 second CD. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lich_Form.

You can do up a decent MM build, currently, but nothing as nice as the old GW1 MM builds (seriously: Army of Darkness Bwahahahaha!). It’s still fun though. The Reaper Specialization gives new life to our current MM possibilities, and is a lot of fun.

I’m currently running with a minion/signet hybrid, with Dagger/WH as my main weapon set and staff alternate. My gear is an even mix of Berzerker/Rampager, but I may be changing that up soon.

Anyway, it all depends on what’s fun for you, in order to decide if a MM build is worth it. It can be great if you do it right.

you guys are awesome, thanks

Khristophoros.7194:

Dagger deals the most damage of any necro weapon by far. The offhand weapons are all good, but for open world stuff you should use warhorn because it gives you area damage and swiftness.

As for ranged weapons, staff has the longest range and hits multiple enemie2s which is very useful. You only need to damage an enemy once to get kill credit for it.

Those are the important details IMO. I suggest you also try out the other necro weapons and just see how they play, but dagger/horn + staff is the way to go for leveling hands down.

(Quinn dont worry about this lol its just a bit of a ‘the more you know’ note)

Actually interestingly you only get a tag regardless of the damage if youre in a party and all members get a tag on the same mob ( dunno if the combined damage of the party needs to fill the quota of the minimum damage requirement or if its ok as long as all present members on the map hit it ).

If it is just you without a party there is a minimum damage requirement (im guessing its a % of the health) in order to get the tag but ofcourse you wont not make that unless you were trying on purpose or are taking part in zerg content where the mob dies too fast due to so many others hitting it which makes tagging difficult on condi builds.

So….I made a baby Necro just to see how it is for the new folks.
There pretty much isn’t a build for level 10, lol. You can’t even get your first utility skill until level 11, and I have no idea how long before you get the next one.
So here is my recommendation for first skills to get:

Start with signets and get your Signet of the Locust. Passive use will give you a 25% speed boost. Use Mighty type gear..the harder you can hit, the faster they go down, the better your survival. Use Death Shroud with abandon, and have fun trying out all the weapon types and learning what your style is